Ben Clarke | Profile

Profile

Join date: May 4, 2022

About

I left high school & college feeling that the U.S. education system left a gap. Like many, I felt that I had been ill-prepared for the part of adulthood around managing personal finances. So, I started Benjamins with Ben! Benjamins with Ben is meant to help people get access to the financial education they need to save with purpose, spend with purpose, reduce stress, and invest.

We'll aim to cover everything from generating a budget to how to (responsibly) use credit cards to automating investing; set it and forget it!

The end goal is to get personal finance in public high schools nationwide! Thanks for taking the time to support me and my 'Why'. - Ben :)

Overview

First Name

Ben

Last Name

Clarke

Posts (43)

May 19, 2026 ∙ 3 min

The poverty line is now… $140,000?

Not personalized financial advice - your money, your choice The Painted Ladies, San Francisco $136,500. That’s the income amount at which a household (family of 4) is considered to no longer be in poverty. At least, that's what Michael Green argues in his article titled “Part 1: My Life is a Lie, How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America.” In the article, Green claims that the U.S. measure of poverty is dated. Particularly, multiplying the cost of food by three is no longer an adequate...

Apr 12, 2026 ∙ 2 min

Who Holds More U.S. Debt Than China? Their Next Move Could Shake the Global Economy

Not personalized financial advice - your money, your choice Ben walking through the Portland Japanese Garden. The average number of cells in a human body can range from 20 to 40 trillion. If you include bacteria in the cell count, that number doubles in many cases (est. 38 trillion bacterial cells). 20 trillion is also the number of dollars estimated as part of Japan's massive foreign asset holdings and government pension fund investments in the Yen carry trade complex. Fun fact: Did you...

Mar 18, 2026 ∙ 2 min

What's the difference between a Savings account and HYSA?

Not personalized financial advice - your money, your choice. Save, save, save. I’ve heard this from many family members and initially interpreted it as ‘Put money into a savings account.’ Basically ‘save’ = ‘savings account’. It wasn’t until I was almost 20 that I understood what they actually meant was, yes, put money into savings accounts, but REALLY what they meant was invest in broad-market index funds for retirement. This doesn’t mean that a savings account isn’t still important,...